A
supporter attends a rally led by Labour leadership candidate
Jeremy Corbyn at the Mercure Cardiff Holland House Hotel on
August 11, 2015 in Cardiff, Wales. Earlier he addressed
supporters at a gathering at the memorial stones to Welsh Labour
hero and NHS creator Aneurin Bevan in Tredegar,
Wales.Matthew Horwood/Getty
Images

A group of people claiming to be Labour Party members who have
become disheartened by the authoritarian nature of Momentum have
set up a Tumblr
page and posted what they claim is evidence of bullying and
harassment within the organisation. Momentum is the grassroots
activist organisation that supports Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Shortly after the launch of Momentum was announced, people from
all over the country who had been involved in Corbyn's leadership
campaign set up social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter for
local Momentum branches. These social media pages were
unsanctioned and grew organically, making their administrators
de facto Momentum organisers for their local area.

The problem for Momentum's leadership was that these local social
media accounts were largely unaccountable, and uncoordinated. A
Labour source has told Business Insider that in the weeks
following Momentum's launch, Labour staffers became increasingly
concerned and confused by the appearance of these social media
accounts as it appeared anyone could set them up.

The people behind the leaks claim that after a while they began
coordinating with Momentum HQ to make their social media accounts
official. People from the national organisation began to join the
local groups to offer their support with organising, and were
added as moderators on the Facebook pages.

But something odd began to happen. Some of these new moderators
began removing people from administrative roles on Facebook and
took over the groups for themselves. Complaints were made to
Momentum HQ and promises were made to rectify things amicably.

Business Insider has reached out to Momentum for comment.

This is a message from James Schneider, who is often referred to
as the
public face of Momentum, reassuring activists via Facebook.

Despite the apparent attempt to sort everything out, things
continued to be a bit of a mess. The last straw for local
organisers appears to have come when a man called Alex Halligan
was installed as administrator on some local pages. Despite
Schneider's reassurances, local organisers were not happy about
Halligan, based on these comments.

It's at this point that Jon Lansman, the founder of Momentum
stepped in. He invited some of the people who were at the centre
of the criticism into a private Facebook group with the
disenfranchised local activists. Below are screenshots of
what happened next.

Max Shanly has been described by the
political news site Guido Fawkes as an ally of Momentum chief
Jon Lansman and is on the executive committee of the Labour youth
wing. Remember, he is talking to local activists in this manner
right under the nose of Lansman. Note that these screenshots were
leaked without context and time stamps.

Momentum has recently been
defending itself against allegations that its members want to
try and deselect Labour MPs whose politics they don't consider to
be left-wing enough.

Shanly appears to be the type of activist who confirms
these fears about Momentum. In an interview with
the rs21 website, he said that MPs with a different view to
Corbyn should be "brutally" brought into line. [Emphasis
ours].

I think Jeremy will face problems not just inside the
Parliamentary Labour Party, which I think is likely to split if
he wins with the Blairites buggering off to form a new SDP, but
also from the Labour Party bureaucracy. New Labourism is still a
hegemonic force at Brewers Green (Labour Party HQ) and despite
having resigned as leader eight years ago, Blair is still the
piper who plays the tune many party staff listen to. The
Labour left will have to act swiftly and I am afraid brutally in
many cases. The PLP will have to be brought into line,
some members of party staff will need to be pointed towards the
exit.

While this is the first time that Shanly's posts have leaked,
they have previously been seen and reported on by
Telegraph journalist Ben Riley-Smith, who also saw an
admission from Lansman that he was concerned by the conversations
in the group.

I am quite disturbed by some of the conversations in this forum.
They certainly do not conform to the code of ethics which states
that Momentum promotes the values that Jeremy popularised during
the campaign, of fair, honest debate focused on policies, not
personal attacks or harassment ... Though we may have differences
on some issues, including perhaps our views of how Momentum
should develop, I hope we are all on the same side when it comes
to defending the legitimacy of Jeremy’s election, changing the
nature of the Labour Party into a campaigning movement for social
change.

Shanly has not been removed from his position within Momentum,
though
he has deleted his Twitter and locked down his Facebook
account following the above leak.

Interestingly, Ridely-Smith
also reported that after expressing concern over the tone of
the conversation in this group, Lansman warned about the danger
of Momentum being infiltrated:

We cannot be certain, however, since like many local groups, this
group may also have been infiltrated by one or more people who
actively oppose us.

There have been
frequent reports that members of the Labour party are afraid
that Momentum is infiltrating Labour with hard-left political
activists whose real loyalty is to rival organisations such as
the Socialist Party. It turns out that Momentum has the same
fear, but the other way around: they are scared of being
infiltrated by politically moderate Labour supporters.

This paranoia might go some way to explaining why this apparent
bullying and harassment of local Momentum activists had been
allowed to happen. Take for example this conversation below in
which Shanly accuses activist "D" of voting for Liz Kendall and
not Corbyn in the leadership election.

Shanly followed up his threat by posting a screenshot that shows
that the activist had posted something positive about both Corbyn
and Kendall. Amazingly, there is also a leaked screenshot of
Lansman appearing to condone the collection of "evidence" against
D.

Following complaints about the way internal matters were being
handled, the people who leaked the screenshots claim that local
activists have been excluded from online discussions about
Momentum by the movement's leadership and a small group of people
appointed by Lansman now set the agenda.